Rei Ayanami (ˆ»”g ƒŒƒC, Ayanami Rei?) is a fictional character from the anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion and the films Evangelion: Death and Rebirth and The End of Evangelion.

Rei Ayanami is the First Child (First Children in the Japanese version) and pilot of Unit 00. She is socially withdrawn and rarely interacts with anyone, except for NERV Commander Gendo Ikari, to whom she initially displays some loyalty but with whom she has a generally distant relationship (she says in Episode 15 that she "doesn't know what kind of person he is"). She lives by herself in a drab, dingy, underfurnished apartment in Tokyo-3, a clutter of books being her only apparent luxury items (assuming they are not, in fact, schoolbooks). Toward the end of the series, Shinji Ikari comments that her apartment is very similar to the place where Ritsuko Akagi says she was born.

Rei Ayanami's beauty comes from the truth that she has feelings. When she cried, it meant the waters of the pool were coming out at last. The struggle to draw your feelings forth, the reconciliation between your surface and your death - that, I believe, is where we truly become alive, truly become human begins." Hayashibara, "What I learned from meeting a girl who didn't know.